A student stands over a patient, needle poised. They have a “perfect” prescription: a textbook combination of points harvested from a lecture slide on chronic lower back pain. But as the needle meets the skin, the student hesitates - the symptom of a quiet habit that has taken hold of our profession. We routinely say we “prescribe” points. It sounds efficient. It echoes the authority of biomedical culture and fits neatly into the insurance field. But vocabulary is never neutral; repeated long enough, it dictates behavior.
Yong Ping Jiang, DOM, PhD
Dr. Yong Ping Jiang is an associate professor and chair of the department of Oriental medicine at the Minnesota College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MCAOM) at Northwestern Health Sciences University. He has been an instructor and member of the clinical faculty there since 1996. He received his DOM degree from Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in 1983 and a PhD in herbal classics from the same college in 1995. He is a licensed acupuncturist and is board certified in acupuncture and Oriental medicine by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.
Dr. Jiang is a member of the Shandong Society for Pulmonary Diseases and the Shandong Yantai Society for Traditional Chinese Medicine, both in China. He is fluent in Chinese and English, and has published several articles in English and two books in Chinese.